I must admit, that’s not either one of us on the title picture. It’s some brave local surfer. But as usual when we’re near an ocean, we’re either both surfing or sipping a sundowner. So who’s to take such pictures of us? Besides, we’d be too scared to do this jump anyways. We leave that to the experts. And there’s lots of them here in Las Peñitas. When the big waves hit on our third day here, they show off their skills:

Marcel and I, on the other hand, have had a pretty lazy month in Little Corn Island and León. Not surprisingly, we’re pretty wobbly on our surfboards. Frankly, we look more like two drunk turtles than anything else. But who cares. We’re just extremely happy to be back in the water and after a few sessions, we’re back in the saddle.

Surfing is clearly the highlight in this little town 20 kilometers from León. From our hostel at the beach we can see both surf spots. During high tide we’re on our boards, the rest of the time we check out the surroundings. To be honest, everything looks pretty neglected. Whole stretches of beach are deserted, just some ruins left behind. The beach itself is alright, but nothing spectacular.

Der Strand von Las Peñitas

Bei Ebbe fischelt die Lagune vor sich hin

Bauruinen am Strand

Der Surfstrand vor unserer Nase

Another issue are the prices in restaurants. A lot of times, they’re twice as high as in the rest of Nicaragua and the portions are small. Way too small for us. After leaving a restaurant hungry once too often, we set out looking for a local place with typical food (rice and beans with scrambled eggs). But that turns out to be quite the challenge. Only on our third attempt do we finally find a very simple place that can’t even be called a restaurant. It’s probably just someones backyard. But in any case, the food is wonderful and plenty – and costs next to nothing. On top of that, we get to chat with parrot Johny. Speaking of animals: I won’t forget my walk along the beach one morning, when suddenly I see a horse standing at the shore, waves lapping at its belly. It was such an unusual sight. It stood there, playing in the waves, until a big one came and scared it away. The horse then rolled around on the beach for a bit and then disappeared somewhere into the bushes.

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In total, we stay six days in Las Peñitas. Three or four would have been enough, but we had to book the hostel in advance (goodbye rainy season) and just didn’t know what to expect. On the weekend, the place does get a bit busier and we even go to a party (till 11:30pm!!!). In the end, our time in Las Peñitas goes by pretty quickly. Next up is a trip up north. That will be our last stop in Nicaragua, as our 90 day tourist visa is expiring…